With the approval of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and the Ministry of Education, an estimated 80 students whose parents have invested in China's southeastern Fujian Province will go to school in Kinmen this coming September.
This will give Taiwanese businesspeople living in China the opportunity to allow their children to study Taiwanese textbooks and be taught by Taiwanese teachers without any communist interference, due to Kinmen's proximity to China. Kinmen is only around 3km away from China's southeast coast.
The education problem has been a headache for Taiwanese parents who do business in China. In order to retain family unity, most Taiwanese businesspeople have their children live with them in China, but in so doing must sacrifice their children's education in Taiwan.
Since the tuition for international schools in China is expensive and schools exclusively for Taiwanese students are not available in Fujian, most Taiwanese students go to Chinese schools -- where communist ideology and hostile thoughts toward Taiwan are taught.
`Little communists'
"We really don't want to see our children going to school to be cultivated as `little communists,'" said Tom Huang (
The "small three links" policy opened the door for direct trade and transport between Kinmen and Xiamen. Since then, Huang and other Taiwanese businessmen in Fujian have been pushing the government to allow their children to be educated in Kinmen -- where the curriculum and education are the same as in Taiwan.
"We would feel better if our kids could be educated in the same way as when we were young," Huang added.
New possibilities
Together with the measure announced by the MAC last week that allows Fujian-based Taiwanese businessmen to join Kinmen and Matsu residents in traveling to China from Kinmen and Matsu without prior permission from the government, the education plan for their children became possible.
An investigation conducted by the MAC showed that 64 elementary, 14 junior high, and three senior-high Fujian-based Taiwanese students who currently study in China would prefer to go to class in Kinmen.
If everything goes smoothly, the designated schools -- Kinhu Elementary School (
To gain an understanding of Kinmen's education environment, a group of 41 Fujian-based Taiwanese parents visited Kinmen last Tuesday and Wednesday and said that they were satisfied with the schools.
"Now, we don't have to worry about the communist ideology and simplified Chinese characters used in China," said Su Po-wen (
In order to promote the education industry in Kinmen, the Kinmen magistrate Lee Chu-feng (
Lee said Kinmen invests millions in education -- an average of about NT$20,000 per student.
"The parents don't have to worry about the quality of education in Kinmen," he added.
The development is considered a win-win situation for both Taiwanese parents and the Kinmen County Government.
Kinmen has suffered serious outward migration and economic decline over the past several years. The students from Fujian may help solve the problem.
MAC Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (
"Fujian-based Taiwanese businessmen will go to Kinmen to visit their children. They will live there, eat there and may think about investing there," the chairwoman said.
"Another advantage of the development is that both parents and children will feel much closer to Taiwan -- that's important," she added.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of